In a statement, Ghaith Al Ghaith, chief executive of FlyDubai, said, "We offer our deepest condolences to the families of the passengers and crew.

"Everyone at FlyDubai is in deep shock and our hearts go out to the families and friends of those involved. We don't yet know all the details of the accident but we are working closely with the authorities to establish the cause. We are making every effort to care for those affected and will provide assistance to the loved ones of those on board."

There was no immediate information on the cause, although some news reports suggested weather could have been a factor.

Al Jazeera's Hoda Abdel-Hamid, reporting from Moscow, said reports indicated that the plane was in the air for about two hours in between making an initial attempt to land, and the second attempt, when the plane crashed.

Vasily Golubev, the governor of the Rostov region some 950 kilometres south of Moscow, was quoted by Russian news agencies as telling local journalists the plane crashed about 250m short of the runway.

Flydubai crash in Russia: What was the weather like?

The plane's flight path, as tracked by Flight Radar 24, shows that the plane made a number of turns near the Rostov-on-Don airport before the final attempted landing.

An aviation official and a security official said at the time that two passengers were lightly injured when three or four bullets hit the body of the plane, but they were unable to specify the source of the gunfire.

FlyDubai, Emirates, Sharjah's Air Arabia and Abu Dhabi's Etihad were the first to suspend flights after the incident, in line with a directive from the United Arab Emirates' civil aviation authority.

It is not yet known what caused the plane to crash at the Rostov-on-Don airport [Sergei Pivovarov/Reuters]